Full Text

New Right

JOHN CALLAGHAN

DOI:
10.1111/b.9781405168908.2010.x

Extract

The term used to denote a broad range of L iberal and conservative ideas which came to prominence in Britain, France, and the United States during the 1970s in opposition to social democratic/New Deal ideologies, practices, and institutions. By then various forms of state intervention adopted since the 1930s in the name of economic growth, social justice, and political stability had become associated with persistent inflation, economic stagnation, and the corrosion of government authority. In this context a revival of interest in both economic L iberalism and the conditions for social order and government authority was translated into at least the rhetoric – and to some extent the practice – of British and American government in the 1980s. Monetary stability, according to economic liberals such as Milton F riedman , could be achieved by strict government control of the quantity of money in circulation, while economic efficiency and growth could be obtained by disengaging the state from economic activity – on the assumption that individuals responding to price signals in markets provide the best mechanism to achieve these goals. Interventionist government, in this view, distorts the price mechanism and spawns coercion, bureaucracy, uniformity, and the dominance of producers’ interests rather than those of the consumer. Friedrich von Hayek's social epistemology was influential in ... log in or subscribe to read full text

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